United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll finds most people who feel alienated by the GOP think the party's main goal is to antagonize Obama.

House Republicans pose for pretend negotiating over the government shutdown.(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Nobody likes a troublemaker.

The Americans who feel more alienated by the Republican Party since last November overwhelming see the GOP's top priority as causing political headaches for President Obama – more than jobs, cutting the debt, reducing health care costs, or anything else.

But it is the overlap of those two poll results that could be particularly distressing for GOP leaders. By a large margin, those who believe that the Republican Party's chief priority is "causing political problems" for Obama believe the party is moving further away from "representing their views."

Almost half, 48 percent, of those surveyed who said that Republicans had moved further from them also said the GOP's top priority was antagonizing Obama. In other words, taking a hardline, anti-Obama posture – when the public identifies that as the Republican Party's chief motivation – appears to be turning off Americans.

It is a particularly acute problem as the government enters its fourth day of its first shutdown in 17 years. In the last 100 hours, Democrats have accused Republicans at every turn of shuttering the government as a way to antagonize Obama and undermine his signature health care law.

But if there are warning signs for Republicans in being seen as the antagonizers-in-chief, there is an opportunity to be had as the party of reducing the debt. Among those who said the party had moved closer to them, a plurality of 35 percent credited reducing the debt as the GOP's number one priority.

It boils down to this: A plurality of those who feel more alienated by the GOP see the party chiefly as antagonizing the president while a plurality of those who feel closer to the party see Republicans as the party of reducing the debt.